Chicago Poems
by MightyMightyMunson
Summary: This is the Windy City, a steel girded paradise. In this concrete jungle, the night smolders with smokey jazz and the streets are stained with blood.This is the big time, your only chance. So place your bets, but beware. In Chicago, the dice are loaded.
1. Prolouge: Dreams in the Dusk

***Chicago Dreams is RATED R and contains graphic violence, sexual content and adult subject matter! If you are underage or easily offended, please refrain from reading this story!***

  


_Well...here it is, my second attempt at story telling. This is a RK AU that takes place during the roaring twenties in Chicago, Illinois. _ _While certain events and locations are based on historical fact, this is a FICTIONAL story. (This means that Elliot Ness and Al Capone won't be making any guest appearances) This is my first attempt at an AU. My interpretation of the RK characters will be based primarily on the original manga and anime series and overlaid with the social mind set and speech patterns that existed in Prohibition era Chicago. My inspiration for this story comes from Carl Sandberg and his beautiful poetry about the Windy City. I hope you like it...and will welcome and respond to your thoughtful reviews._

_Best Wishes, and Good Reading, _

_MightyMightyMunson_

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

_Hog Butcher for the World, _

_Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, _

_Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;_

_Stormy, husky, brawling, _

_City of the Big Shoulders:_

"Chicago" Written by Carl Sandberg

  


Chicago Poems

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prologue: Dreams In the Dusk

_Dreams in the Dusk, _

_Only Dreams closing the day...And with the day's close going back_

_To the gray things, the dark things_

_The far, deep things of dreamland._

_Dreams, only dreams in the dusk...Only the remembered pictures_

_Of lost days when the day's loss....Wrote in tears the heart's loss._

_Tears and loss and broken dreams...May find your heart at dusk_.

"Dreams in the Dusk" Written by Carl Sandberg

  


There were days that were made with a boy in mind. Enshi looked up at the clear blue

sky and smiled, his sharp eyes fixing on the purple speck that was his kite. _(This is one of those days....)_ It was a warm, sunny day, Lincoln Park was in full bloom, and best of all....the steady spring wind coming off of Lake Michigan was custom made for kite flying. He sighed contentedly, drinking up every ounce of sunshine, savoring the sensation of freshly cut lawn grass between his toes...the scent of bright red tulips, the sugary sweet taste of pink strawberry ice cream on his lips...the sight of his sister's beautiful smile.

Naturally, she was here right beside him, exactly where a good sister should be. "Hey Tomoe!" He called out, eager to impress his older sibling. "Watch this!" Tugging hard on his taunt kite string, he made his creation dance and twist in the wind. "Whaddya think Sis, is this the best kite in the entire world or what?" 

Tomoe laughed softly, her black eyes shining. "Of course it is." Gracefully, she rose from the picnic blanket, a vision in lavender and white. "After all...you made it." Lovingly, she reached over and tousled his hair. "You're such a bright boy, Nishi." 

Enshi closed his eyes and inhaled the delicate scent of white plum perfume, a smell he'd long associated with his sister. To him, the fragrance was home personified, just as Tomoe was the walking embodiment of happiness. She was the calm, steady center of his little world.....a loving sister who spoiled him shamelessly...a surrogate mother that kept him safe and warm...a friend and confidant that he relied on. She was in a word, perfect....and she was his...and he was hers, brother and sister, mother and son. _(Just as it should be...) _

Sighing softly he nestled his face against her soft cotton skirt, oblivious that the truth that he'd never so much as tasted strawberry ice cream, that he'd never owned a kite, that instead of standing in a beautiful park with his sister, he was lying in an unheated apartment, shivering violently beneath a battered blanket, unaware that he was about to be abandoned but the one he loved best. __

  


January 18, 1911

West Side of Chicago

615 South Hamilton Avenue

Apartment C-2

"Tomoe." Kenshin hissed softly, his hard, amber eyes narrowing with concern. "We need to leave now." Anxiously he peered out the cracked window, scanning each dark alley for any signs of movement. _(We have only a few hours to get out of Chicago before all hell breaks loose....) _

Tomoe closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. "I know." Taking care not to wake her sleeping brother, she gently covered Enshi with another blanket, praying that the thread bare fabric would shelter him from the bone cracking cold._ (Oh Nishi...please try and understand...) _Bending down, she brushed a feather light kiss on his forehead. _(...I can't protect you...not this time....) _ She watched sadly as her brother stirred in his sleep, a gentle smile gracing his cold little mouth. _(...not from the men who are hunting us...)_

Kenshin closed his eyes, unwilling to bear the sight of Tomoe in such pain, knowing with bitter certainty that upon his narrow shoulders, the blame had to fall. _(I should have simply killed her that night....she would have been spared this nightmare....)_ He knew that he was a damned man..that his soul would burn in purgatory for the countless sins he'd committed. What he couldn't bear to consider was the fact that the slender woman kneeling before him might get dragged down with him. _(If I'd only done what I was supposed to...she'd be up in heaven where she belongs...and I'd not be running like hell with a bounty on my head...)_ It had been such a simple assignment, the black telegram one of many that he'd received in his short and violent life. _(We were sent to Bridgeport to snuff out Grazziano and his thugs_) 

Kenshin gingerly touched a long scar on the side of his face, a scar he'd recieved during the resultant gun fight, a battle so fierce that men on both sides of the tracks still talked about the carnage in muted whispers. _(Twelve men ended up dead...one of them was her fiance....) _He glanced over at Tomoe and shook his head sadly. _(The dumb son of a bitch brought her along, thought she'd get a kick outta seeing what he did....) _It had been Kenshin who had found the sobbing, injured woman, curled up behind a distillery, shaking like a leaf. _(She looked up at me and knew what was going to happen...I could see the fear in her eyes, hear the resignation in her voice...) _It had been the heartbroken tone of her voice that had given Kenshin pause...the dead, despondent smile that had stayed his lethal hands. _(She told me that I made it rain blood....)_

Something was wrong...terribly wrong. Enishi tried to control his kite as snow eddies swirled about him, his half frozen fingers fumbling with the kite string. "Sis?" He turned towards his sister, knowing that she would protect him....provide him with an explanation...make things right. "Tomoe what's happening?" The sunlight was a mere memory, the warm spring breezes had been replaced with bitterly cold blasts of wind that forced him to his knees and took his breath away. He cried out when a particularly vicious gust caused his kite string to snap, hurtling his kite out of reach...far up into the churning black snow clouds. "Tomoe! Help me! My kite!" 

To his horror, his sister simply smiled at him, then leaned down and placed a tender kiss on his frost nipped cheek. "I'm sorry Nishi." Her voice was hollow and sad, her black eyes shimmering with tears. "Please forgive me...please try to understand..."

Enishi was frightened. "Understand what?" He reached out, clutching desperately at his sister's snow encrusted skirt. To his dismay, she pushed him away from her, sending him sprawling into an icy snowdrift. "Tomoe, please! What's wrong?" His childish voice was lost in the windstorm, his tear filled pleas ignored.

"I love you Nishi...never forget that." Tomoe whispered, her face dissolving into a million indistinct snowflakes. "I'll always love you...no matter what happens...." She smiled at him one last time..then was gone, her final words no more than an icy whisper. "Good bye....please...try and be good."

_(She's leaving me...) _The thought alone was enough to incite hysterics. "No!" He

screamed, fighting tooth and nail to run after his sister, to stay by her side. "Tomoe!" His eyes were wild with grief, his furious screams punctuated by heartrending sobs. "Tomoe! Please don't go! Don't leave me!!!" 

With loud whimper he awoke, his nightmare still a threat in the pre-dawn darkness. _(It was only a dream...) _Still shaking with the remembered loss of his sister, he awkwardly dried his eyes. _(Of course it was a dream....) _Enishi shuddered with relief as he held up Tomoe's own tattered blanket, inhaling her familiar scent. _(See...she covered me up...didn't want me to be cold...) _

"Dammit boy, what in the hell are you doing up at this godforsaken hour?" His father growled angrily. 

"Sorry Papa." Enshi bit out the phrase between tightly clenched teeth. "I didn't mean to wake you." Unwilling to give his old man an excuse to tan his butt, he quickly laid back down on the flea bitten mattress that served as his bed and held very still.

"Miserable little cuss." Too drunk to notice the hate in his youngest child's eyes, he too 

flopped back down on his bed, praying that the foreman at the Union Stockyards wouldn't notice that he was nursing a massive hangover. _ (The uptight bastard is out to get me fired....)_ "Tomoe!" He bellowed, wincing at the sound of his own voice. "Get your lazy ass outta bed and find me some aspirin !" Several seconds passed by. "Tomoe?" 

Cursing angrily, he sat back up in bed, his volcanic temper ignited by this unusual display of daughterly disobedience. "By damn you'd better get in here now or there will be Hell to pay!" He staggered to his feet, then fell backwards, landing hard on the floor, still too inebriated to walk. "That little tramp." He belched loudly, then blinked stupidly, trying to see through the alcohol tinged mist. "Knowing my rotten luck, she's run off with that red headed bastard from the north side of town."

Enishi blanched, his hands fisting into the blanket. "Don't call her that." He whispered furiously, unable to keep his thoughts to himself where his sister's honor was concerned. "She a good person...and she'd never run off." Taking care to keep out of the reach of his father, he stood. _(At least she'd never run off without taking me with her...) _ "Tomoe?" He called out softly, his boyish treble tight with worry. "Hey Sis? Where are ya?" Ignoring his father's furious shouts and threats, he tiptoed into the kitchen, praying that he'd find Tomoe sleeping peacefully beside the pot belly stove. She wasn't in the kitchen, nor could he find her in the tiny closet that his sister and he would hide in to avoid being beaten. "Tomoe?" Fear began to creep up through the floorboards, filling him with dread. "Sis?" Enishi croaked, his turquoise eyes filling with tears. _(Oh no...) _Folding his trembling arms against his heaving chest, he looked around wildly, praying that he was wrong...knowing with a dreadful sense of clarity that his sister was gone. 

  
  


Two Weeks Later

South Side of Chicago

1123 South State Street

Room 14

  


The hotel had no name. None of them did in this part of town. None of them needed to. Every man, priest and mother in Chicago knew about what went on with the rat infested buildings, the type of women that carved out a nightmarish existence within the filthy rooms, the moral reprobates that visited them. This was the part of town that you made damn sure you were out of by nightfall...and if you were smart...you made sure that you never stepped foot on the south side of state street. Period. In summer, this strip of sin was a sweltering den of iniquity. In winter, it was nothing short of a ice blasted nightmare, devoid of warmth and comfort, a treacherous wasteland of broken whiskey bottles, frozen vagrants and festering despair.

And yet, in one of these run down hotels, in a small room where the striped green wallpaper was peeling and the floorboards were rotten, in an ancient bed with a water stained, worn out excuse for a mattress...a woman slept peacefully. Her pale white skin was mottled with bruises and cuts. Her long hair was tangled, the midnight tresses in dire need of a good combing. Hands that had once been soft and refined, were cracked...sore...covered with scratches and dirt. Her lavender blouse was filthy, spattered with blood and stained with tears. She was filthy, half starved and in serious need of a bath. 

In a word....she was...beautiful.

Beautiful, at least to the man lying beside her. His severe, calculating expression softened, became tender...his lethal amber iris transforming into soft lavender orbs as he ran the pads of his calloused fingertips over her back...up her arm...over her full, pale mouth. _(So beautiful....)_ His gaze lingered on her mouth for a moment, then traveled upwards...up over a badly bruised cheek, settling at last on her tightly shut eyes, eyes that at one time had sparkled like precious obsidian..but now were red rimmed from exhaustion, her black lashes stiff with frozen tears. _(....so sad....) _It was her sorrow that cut him to the quick, rending his heart with the brutality of an exploding shot gun shell. 

_(I'm going to lose her...)_ He was far too old to find comfort in hopeless dreams and padded self delusion, an eighty year old cynic in the body of a 16 year old boy. _(...lose her before I have a chance to make things right...)_ An icy tremor ran through his slender frame, prompting him to pull his lover close, to hold the night at bay...if even for a moment._(...before I can help her understand...) _There were so many things he wanted to tell her...so many things that she needed to hear. _(I never meant to hurt her...to kill the man she adored....)_ Bending his head, he softly kissed her, his long red hair falling over them both like a crimson curtain. _(...never meant to make her cry....) _His eyes began to burn...his throat became uncomfortably tight. _(...never meant to fall in love...)_

And love her he did. Despite his best intentions, despite what he'd done...and would surely do before his violent life was taken from him, he loved this woman. _(And somehow...)_ He smiled against the cook of her slender neck as he felt her stir beneath him, the soft curves of her slender body igniting deep fires within him. _(...for some reason...) _His hands wandered down, skimming over her collarbone, grazing the hollow of her throat, caressing and cupping her small, white breasts. She sighed softly and opened her eyes, gracing him with a rare, real smile. _(...she loves me back...)_

As a child, Tomoe had learned of heaven and paradise...of a peaceable kingdom inhabited by loving saints and wise disciples. In her youth she had lit milky white candles, sung hymns of joy and supplication, dreamt of being a good girl...the type of girl that ended up in a pretty house...with children to dote upon, a husband to serve and be protected by. _(I thought that if I did my best...tried my hardest...that everything would work out...) _She shuddered, partially from the icy cold...partially from pleasure._ (...that I would have a happy life....) _In her childish innocence, she had never considered the possibility that her mother would die in childbirth, leaving her to raise a little brother, that her father would lose himself in liquor, becoming a violent shell of a man, that her childhood sweetheart would grow up to be a gangster...that she would end up falling in love with his killer.__

She closed her eyes, banishing the lingering regrets, trying desperately to focus on the here...on the now...on the slender man in whose arms she lay. _(Oh...Kenshin...) _Arching upwards, she gasped with delight as his warm mouth found purchase atop her breast, covering her areola. A good girl would have been ashamed of being in such a place...in such a bed....with such a man. _( Oh, Love...) _A nice girl would have never faltered, never erred....and certainly never committed the sins she had. _(Oh...God...) _Parting her legs, she pulled him closer, desperate to feel him moving inside her. 

He was death incarnate...the manslayer from the North Side...a ruthless killer who people feared, a wanted criminal who defied being captured. _(He's also honest and brave....and unbelievably kind_...) Wrapping her legs around his narrow waist, Tomoe held Kenshin close, memorizing every facet of his being...each ragged scar...the smell of his skin...the taste of his tongue as it moved against hers. _(So capable of such goodness...)_ Her eyes welled up as she recalled the tenderness of his first shy kiss, how fiercely he defended her non-existent honor, the love and warmth she was starting to hear in his soft voice. _(I know...that if given the time...he would find himself...become the good man he was born to be...) _

But time was running out. The trains were being watched, no ferry could offer them safe passage, the roads were impassable gauntlets...the police force impossibly corrupt. _(We have nowhere to run....no one to turn to...)_ She could feel his desperation as he kissed her, could see the despair creeping into his beautiful eyes.

"We're not going to make it, are we?" 

Kenshin closed his eyes for a moment, unwilling to admit what they both already knew. _(No....We're not.....) _Still deep inside her, he continued to move urgently, losing himself in her warmth, knowing with a certainty that he'd never have another chance to love her this way. "I'm sorry." He whispered brokenly, torn between despair and desire. "So damn sorry."

"I know." Tomoe's eyes filled with tears. "Me too." She threw her arms around her second love, covering his face and neck with frantic kisses, smothering his gruff apologies with her trembling mouth. 

"I love you." She pressed her face against the crook of his neck and began to sobbing raggedly, unable to separate the white hot pleasure that was flooding through her body and the icy dread that was wrapping itself around her heart.

Her admission was his undoing. "I...love...." With a heartbroken groan, Kenshin gripped her hips tightly, his thrusts taking on a desperate note. "I love you too." Clenching his teeth, trying not to cry, he kissed her over and over again, desperately trying to be soft and tender, to pretend, just this once, that he was the type of man she deserved, that they weren't making love for the last time on a filthy bed in a run down brothel....that they still had time to heal...to learn to laugh again...to live. 

Outside, eight men crept towards the darkened whore house, their guns loaded and their instructions clear. For the two occupants in room 14, time had just run out. 

  


_To Be Continued....._

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***_Rurouni Kenshin is the exclusive property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and associated parties. The characters are used as an expression of fan appreciation for the non-profit purpose of entertainment only and do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of the above listed entities. Original portions of this story as well as any and all original characters are the copyright of the author. While certain locations and events are based on actual history, this is a fictional story and any similarity with person(s) living or dead is entirely coincidental. _***

______________________________________________________________________________ Author's notes:

1.) Lincoln Park is located on the north side of Chicago. It is located south of Lake Shore Drive and home to the Lincoln Zoo. It was here, that the elite of Chicago would stroll...the rolling lawns and lush gardens a veritable paradise. 

2.) Bridgeport is an industrial area west of Chinatown. The area is the center of Chicago's famous meat packing history and is home to the Nation's largest and most infamous slaughterhouse, the Union Stockyards. (Recommended reading: Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle") 

3.) North of the University of Chicago and south of Downtown was the Red Light District, located along a ten block stretch of State Street. It was bursting at the seams with brothels, peep shows, adult bookstores and filthy hotels that rented rooms by the hour. 


	2. Lost

DESOLATE and lone

All night long on the lake

Where fog trails and mist creeps,

The whistle of a boat

Calls and cries unendingly,

_5_

Like some lost child

In tears and trouble

Hunting the harbor's breast

And the harbor's eyes.

Lost by Carl Sandberbg

Chicago Poems

1916

Pain.

1Creeping silently up Tomoe's bound legs, it began to lick at her bruised thighs, forcing her up from the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness. _(Where....am....I....?)_ Sooty lashes fluttered weakly, then opened, slowly revealing obsidian hued eyes that were dark and haunted, the delicate skin surrounding them torn and bruised from countless blows to the face. _(Why.....am.....I....here....?)_ Her sleep deprived mind was rusty with weariness, allowing only the most fragmented of images to seep through the cobwebby mess of memories.

She could recall lying in bed, a warm body atop hers, the taste and smell of Kenshin permeating her senses, reminding her briefly of the better things that life could offer a woman. _(He...told me.....he loved me.....) _Forgetting that she was half naked, lying face down in the snow, and covered with her own dried blood, Tomoe pressed a trembling hand to her bruised cheek, remembering fondly the awkward confession from the red headed man slayer, and how she too, in her own shy way had returned the sentiment, her body showing her devotion more than words ever could. _(....I told him.....I loved him as well......that...I...always would....)_ Her pale fingers, drifted downwards, lingering on froze, split lips that had once been smooth and shapely, pretending that the caress came from her lover.

_(I never wanted it to end....)_ Tomoe rolled painfully onto her back, the compacted snow drifts biting into her bruised shoulder blades. _(But end it did...) _As the weak winter moon had risen above the Chicago skyline, hard eyed men had kicked down the flimsy brothel door, filling the winter air with vulgar threats and the acidic stench of spent gunpowder. There had been eight of them at first, eight ruthless men drunk with the urge to murder and destroy. In seconds, five of them were dead, their eyes and mouths forever widened with shock at the inhuman speed and power of their slender adversary.

Tomoe coughed softly, her blood flecked lips at odds with the soft dusting of snow that still graced her cheekbones and chin. _(I begged him to leave me....to escape.....to survive.....) _Tears welled up, spilling gracelessly down battered cheeks, bathing her ravaged face with salty warmth. _(He refused....) _She could barely recall Kenshin pushing her frantically down a narrow hallway, shielding her body with his own as the remaining gangsters opened fire upon them. Fragmented images assaulted her, forcing her to recall the sound of gunshots, feeling Kenshin stumble behind her, his violet eyes going wide with pain as he collapsed..the triumphant shouts of their assailants....the lecherous expressions of the men as they defiled her, their breath rank and bodies heavy.

_(I suppose that he's dead....)_ A dull, frozen sort of ache began to consume her, filling her battered body, numbing her to everything but the concept of his loss. _(....Kenshin.....)_ She sighed softly and stared up at the grey winter sky, noticing for the fist time that a slight snow was beginning to fall. She gave a sad, resigned smile as the delicate snowflakes stuck her face, coating her lashes and nose, clinging to the dried blood and tears. _(...It won't be long now…) _Pressing a trembling hand against her bleeding abdomen, she exhaled weakly, watching her breath freeze in the bitterly cold air, transforming into icy tendrils of vapor that twisted and turned as they ascended to heaven.

She could hear footsteps in the snow...footsteps that surely belonged to some faceless, mindless monster who would certainly finish what the other gangsters had started. _(Let them....do their worst.....) _Tomoe closed her eyes and patiently waited, almost anticipating the brutal violence that would turn into blessed oblivion. _(.....they can't hurt me anymore......)_ Several branches rustled nearby, a frozen tree twig cracking under the weight of her unknown assailant. _(....than they already....have.....)_

Evergreen branches slowly parted, revealing not the muscular form of a gangster, but the thin silhouette of a child. With feral caution, the boy emerged from the safety of the trees, his hands and feet bare and bleeding, the tips of the toes a dangerous waxy white. "Tomoe?" Enishi whispered as he crept towards the nightmare that had once been his beautiful sister half praying, half dreading that the one most dear to him would respond.

_(It can't end like this…she can't be dead…I won't allow it! Not after all I've gone through to fine her!) _Closer and closer he crept to the black haired woman covered in blood. He was shivering, half starved and shaking, his emaciated frame burning with fever. For days, he had followed the trail of his sister, living off of the charity of strangers as well as the more meager offerings that he was able to scrounge from the rancid garbage bins that lined the city alleys.

"En…Enishi?" A woman's voice, soft and sad filtered through his half frozen senses, igniting white hot hope within him. _(She's alive! It's not too late after all!) _

Nearly delirious with joy, the small boy stumbled towards his sister. "Tomoe!" He tripped on a tree root, his half frozen feet catching on the rough, frozen bark, and fell.

"Enishi…don't come closer…" Tomoe whispered raggedly as she struggled to cover her exposed chest. "I want you…to go back home…go back to Papa….." She swallowed weakly, trying to keep back the blood that was welling up in the back of her throat. _(I want you to go before you see me…) _

"No! I won't leave you, I won't! " Clawing at the icy earth, Enishi crawled towards his battered sister, shutting out his pain, his hunger, his fear...focusing only on getting to her...saving her....making her smile. "It's gonna be okay. I'll keep you safe...make everything better..." After what seemed like an eternity to his lonesome mind, he was finally kneeling by her side, cradling her bruised hand against his chest.

"I found you." Enishi forced himself to smile brightly as he tried to smooth back Tomoe's snarled hair. "We're together again." Ignoring the horrific bruises that covered her bound thighs, forgetting the angry, red welts that marred the whiteness of her stomach and breasts, he forced his sister to sit up, supporting to her failing body against his youthful frame. "I'm gonna get you untied and then we're going to go home so I need you to try and stay awake! C'mon Sis...please try....try for me, okay?"

_(Oh...Sweetheart.....I'm so sorry......)_ Tomoe gazed up into her brother's cold, haunted face , seeing in his turquoise eyes enough agony and anger to last a hundred lifetimes. _(....so...terribly sorry....) _"Enishi. I want you....to go....right now..." She closed her eyes and began to cough painfully, unable to keep her throat clear any longer. "Please....it's not safe...."

"No!" Enishi shook his head frantically as he struggled to cut through the blood soaked knots with a dull paring knife that he had stolen for their home. "Don't you dare send me away! I'm here to take you home!" Clutching her by the shoulders, his little hands began to shake, not with fear or cold, but with fury. "I need you Tomoe! You've got to come back with me! Please!"

Tomoe cried out in agony, the jarring motion setting her stomach on fire. "It's too late." Trying not to retch, she collapsed onto her bloody side. "Enishi...you've got to listen to me...I've been shot....there's nothing you can do for me..."

"NO!" Enishi screamed, forgetting in his panic where he was. "I won't leave you here alone!" He caught his sister by her bound hands and tugged hard at the frozen rope, trying to force a measure of his indomitable will into her failing body. "Get up, right now!"

_(They're going.....to hear him.....)_ It was instinct that gave her strength. _(.....I can't let them find him......)_ Clenching her teeth against the fiery pain, Tomoe struggled to sit up, to protect the child at her side. _(.....can't let them hurt......my....brother.....) _"All right Nishi....I'll try." She smiled weakly at her sibling, thankful that she'd managed to forestall a tantrum. "Just promise me....that if something....happens...that you'll run away....please....promise me that you won't let them get...you...."

"I promise!" Enishi nodded, crossing his fingers behind his back. _(I promise that I'll stay with you no matter what happens....)_ Carefully, he helped his sister sit back up, then once again began to struggle with the thick ropes, unaware that he…and the one he loved best were being watched.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Standing small against the impressive backdrop of the Chicago skyline, the policeman carefully scanned the peaceful cemetery, his sharp ears and sharper eyes detecting no trace of activity amidst the granite headstones and marble mausoleums that littered the pristine snowscape.

"I'm sure of it." The second officer replied, releasing a plume of acrid cigarette smoke into the freezing night air.

_(Of course you are…why did I even bother asking?) _A boyish smile graced the lips of the first officer, making him appear far less dangerous than he really was. "Do you think he's still alive?" Effortlessly, the small man leapt over the wrought iron fence that surrounded the sacred ground, landing silently on the other side.

"I do." The taller man followed suit, then crept soundlessly forward towards a large cluster of evergreen trees that graced the left side of Graceland Cemetery.

The smaller policeman nimbly navigated around hidden grave markers and neglected headstones, occasionally blowing on his hands to keep them warm. "And the girl?"

For the space of a minute there was no sound from his partner, only the smooth inhalation of breath and the subsequent exhalation of tobacco tinged air. "For her sake, I hope the end came quickly."

"How tragic." The shorter officer paused, his ageless brown eyes fixing on the glass covered statue of a little girl a short distance away. _(From all accounts Miss Yukishiro was a kind, good girl…how sad that she ended in such a state…and with such a man…) _He softly cleared his throat, covering his mouth with a blood stained handkerchief, ignoring the painful ache in his lungs as well as taunting whisper in the back on his mind that reminded him that before long, he would be joining the hapless young woman in death.

The taller officer glanced over at his partner's pale face, his narrow lips curling up with disdain and carefully hidden sorrow. _(This cold air is going to be the death of him…)_ "Don't be a sentimental moron." He took a final drag of his cigarette, and then tossed the smoldering butt into the snow, watching dispassionately as the fiery cigarette fragments hissed and melted, staining the pristine snowdrift with black, wet ash. _(That girl sealed her fate the second she allied herself with that murderer…) _

For indeed it was a murderer that he and his partner were tracking, a cold blooded killing machine that had, in the short space of two years, wreaked bloody havoc in the Chicago underworld like no other, eliminating rival organizations with ruthless efficiency, creating the foundation for a new order of criminals, one that would prove ruinous to the city that the officer had sworn to protect. _(I will not let that happen…I will find this man slayer and the men who control him and see to it that justice is served…) _

Lighting another cigarette, Saitoh paused for a moment, giving his weakened partner time to catch his breath without causing any embarrassment while he mentally reviewed every aspect of their case, looking for and finding a measure of peace in his analytical introspection. _(Duty before all else…)_ It was the code that he and his partner lived by, the reasoning behind their mutual will, the force that allowed him to hunt his prey and inspired Okita to do battle against the tuberculosis that was destroying his body, but would never defeat the small man's warrior spirit.

"Captain?" The sound of his partner's voice jarred him out of his silent introspection. "I think you should take a look at this."

"What is it Okita?" _(Now who's the sentimental moron? Eh?)_ Slamming down his morose thoughts and instantly refocusing on the task at hand, Saitoh put out his cigarette and walked over to where the shorter officer was standing.

"Footprints." Crouching down, the policeman carefully measured the length and width of the compacted snow, his smile fading fast. "They belong to a child…I'd say….eight to ten years of age." He sighed and gently pressed his hand against the shallow prints, finding that the child's toe prints were smaller than the tips of his fingers. _(Merciful Mary…the kid isn't wearing any shoes…) _

"This makes no sense." Saitoh said gruffly, his amber eyes narrowing as he tracked the miniature tracks towards the grove of evergreen trees. _(What in God's name would possess a child to come to a place like this?) _Carefully he pulled out a pair of binoculars and began scanning the snow covered cemetery for any signs of movement. "The girl's father made no mention of having any other children."

Okita closed his eyes, his photographic memory reviewing every written line and mental snapshot of the case. "The father lied." He opened his eyes, and looked over at his partner, hiding his anger and frustration beneath a sunny smile. "Remember, when we went to the apartment to question him?" He coughed once again, wincing in pain as his blood filled lungs began to burn. "There was a blanket…in the corner of one of the bedrooms."

Saitoh swore, remembering the tenderly stitched and obviously well loved covering, a patch-worked blanket covered with orange kite appliqués. _(The sort of blanket that a mother would make for her son…or a sister for her younger brother…) _

"Why didn't the father tell us that his son was also missing?" Okita shook his head, appalled at the apparent lack of humanity.

"Who knows…who cares?" Saitoh shrugged, still scanning the cemetery with his binoculars. "Either way, that alcoholic bastard won't have to worry about his children after tonight."

Okita nodded. _(They're either dead…or soon will be in state custody…)_ He glanced down at the little footprints and sighed, knowing full well that the boy who made them had probably already succumbed to the elements.

"Shit." Saitoh stiffened, his amber eyes widening with surprise. Adjusting the binoculars, he focused all of his attention on a small grove of evergreens, and the two figures struggling to emerge from the snow covered branches as well as the much larger and far more menacing men who were trailing them.

"What is it?" Okita hissed, his hand going for the holster on his hip.

"The children…they're alive." Saitoh snarled, his sharp canines gleaming in the low winter light. Rapidly, he took his gun out of the holster, checked the ammunition chambers, and then began to sprint towards the grove of trees, his face set in the sternest of scowls.

"Then what's wrong?" Okita panted as he ran after his tall partner, struggling to keep his airway open. He skidded to a stop as he heard the sound of a gun being fired, the short burst of sound at odds with the quite stillness of the cemetery.

Saitoh crouched down behind a tall tombstone as a second shot rang out in the darkness, preparing his mind and body for the battle that was sure to come. "They're not alone."

Author's Notes and Commentary:

Graceland Cemetery is one of Chicago's best-known and most historic cemeteries. It was established in 1860, originally outside city limits. The original City Cemetery was on the lake front and was considered a health hazard due to overcrowding and water-borne disease. It is said to be the most beautiful of all the cemeteries in Chicago. Ponds and paths wind around the grounds nestled amount great blossoming trees. Graceland rivals another cemetery, Oak Woods, when it comes to legends and lore.

One ghost story, the tragic tale of Inez Clark is mentioned in the Saitoh/Okita part of this chapter. (The shorter officer paused, his ageless brown eyes fixing on the glass covered statue of a little girl a short distance away) Inez Clark died in 1880 at the age of six. Her grieving parents commissioned a life-sized statue of the girl to be placed on her grave. It was completed a year later, and like many Chicago area statues, was placed inside a glass box to protect it from the elements. According to local legend, the statue of Inez will vanish from the box occasionally, especially during violent thunderstorms.

I wanted to thank you all for being so incredibly patient with me. My muse, it appears, moved to Bermuda and forgot to forward me her address. I will continue to write this and my other stories (Believe it or not, I'm actually working on an Aoshi/Misao AU) and get them posted as soon as I'm happy with the quality. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. Please leave an email address so that I can personally respond to any questions or comments that you may have.


	3. The Great Hunt Part 1 of 2

_Did I mention that one day I'd try and update? Well, I finally did. I want to apologize to all of you for the delay in posting. RL has been quite the adventure, but I finally feel like I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Granted, it might be a train, but I am willing to go out on a limb and hope for the best._

_**Please be advised that this chapter is Rated "M" for a reason**. It has all sorts of dark, nasty, angsty **"M" **related topics and specifically mentions con-consensual sexual relations. As a woman, wife and mother, I want to assure you that I don't write about such subject matter lightly, but rather do so with the understanding that this sort of thing was not uncommon in Chicago brothels and in certain socio-economic circle during the first decade or two of the 20th century. This is easily one, if not the, darkest chapter in this story and I do hope that you will hang with me. We're just an update or two __away __(which will be much more regular!) before you get to see some of the brighter aspects of life in the Windy City._

_If you have any questions or concerns about this chapter, or any other matter, please send me an email and I promise to write you back. Thank you for reading, for reviewing and for being patient with this well intentioned, but slightly scatter brained writer known as MightyMightyMunson. I also feel obligated to give a big thank you to some wonderful friends, both old and new, who helped me find the courage and the inspiration to start writing again. _

**THE GREAT HUNT**

(Part 1 of 2)

I cannot tell you now; when the wind's drive and whirl  
Blow me along no longer, and the wind's a whisper at last--  
Maybe I'll tell you then-- some other time….

I never knew any more beautiful than you: I have hunted you under my thoughts,  
I have broken down under the wind and into the roses looking for you.  
I shall never find any greater than you.

_**The Great Hunt**_ by Carl Sandberg

Chicago Poems

**May 23, 1903**

**Blue Island Suburb**

**A back room in a brothel "stockade"**

"Don't look Shinta!" The girl whispered, her tears falling down onto his upturned face as she held him close to her heart. "Close your eyes…baby…close em tight!"

But he couldn't close his eyes, couldn't turn away from the horror unfolding before him. He watched as the intoxicated man grabbed yet another one of the sobbing brothel girls by her hair, yanking her towards him. Ignoring her hysterical screams, the drunk threw her onto her back upon a dirty table and bent over her, forcing his way between her trembling legs, crushing her bleeding lips to his tobacco stained mouth.

_(He does this because he is strong…) _Shinta thought wretchedly as he watched the whore, a sweet faced, brown eyed girl named Elsie, endure what no woman should _(…and because she is weak…)._ His little hands, small and childlike clenched into helpless fists. These women had taken him in when no one else would, had fed him and bathed him, had shown in, despite their own sorry states, kindness and mercy.

_(I want to be strong…)_ Anger filled Shinta's heart, making him tremble and shake, not from fear, but from fury. _(…so I can protect those close to me)_ Looking around, he saw that a boxing knife had slipped out from the dockworker's trousers and was lying on the floor. It seemed to call to him from across the low lit room, the mother of pearl handle glistening like a beacon to the terrified child.

Shinta blinked, and the brothel stockade began to disintegrate about him, the garishly colored wallpaper fading into austere marble mausoleum walls, the wooden floor, stained with liquor and blood bleaching out, becoming white as winter snow and just as cold.

Eyes heavy, he blinked again, watching as the brothel girls, their tear stained faces and man handled bodies evaporated into mere memories, leaving in their places hard faced thugs who had him surrounded and were kicking and beating his bloody body. Poor Elsie disappeared as well, as did the table on which she lay shamefully sprawled.

Shinta slowly turned his head and gazed in wide eyed horror as the dockworker underwent a similar transformation, becoming a well dressed, yet undeniably menacing figure standing in the mausoleum entrance that the child, and eventually the man…no, the monster he had become, would know far too well.

**February 2, 1911**

**North Side of Chicago**

**Graceland Cemetery**

A shot rang out in the still winter night, startling a flock of hardy starlings. Frantically, the birds scattered, seeking a measure of safety from both the piercingly sharp staccato of gunfire and the softer, yet equally disturbing sound of a black eyed girl crying out in pain as she fell to the snow covered earth, her left shoulder staining the snow crimson.

Two dark shapes, moving quickly and quietly began to race across the cemetery towards the sound of the gun fire. One man, tall and rangy, moved in a straight line towards the left side of the building, never wavering from his course, a cluster of evergreen trees that surrounded a marble mausoleum. The other man, smaller and quicker, darted in between the tombstones, flitting amid the death markers like a determined spirit, looking for two children in dire need of protection.

After a few minutes of running, Okita stumbled and collapsed beside an ornately carved tombstone, his boyish face contorting in agony. Gasping, his ruined lungs begging for breath, he began coughing violently, no longer able to ignore the burning heat that was clawing up the back of his throat. _(I don't have time for this…) _he thought, as grimaced and coughed up out thick strings of blood tinged phlegm into a handkerchief. _(I have to find those children!) _He had never allowed his condition to slow him down on a mission and compromise his partner and those they had sworn to protect and he wasn't about to start now!

Still winded, he moved forward, clinging to the cold grave markers for support. _(Where on earth could those kids be?)_ Though he knew that the tuberculosis that was robbing him both of breath and eventually his life would prevent him from ever experiencing the joys of fatherhood, Okita adored children nonetheless, and was loved by his nieces and nephews, and was an honorary uncle to Saitoh and Tokio's three boys. And it was because he cared for children so, and because he knew the sort of men that were hunting them, that he pushed himself past his deteriorating physical limits, and continued to search, even if all he found was proof that the children were no longer living.

Moving in an easterly direction; he made his way towards a small cluster of evergreen trees that surrounded a granite memorial in the shape of a melancholy guardian angel. Smelling blood, the crouched down low, and crept around to the right, silently taking out his service revolver, and preparing to fire. Steadying himself for a potential gun fight, he peered around the trunk of one of the snow covered trees, then swore and rushed forward towards the sister and brother that he'd been so desperately seeking.

The girl, as he'd expected, was in very bad shape. A bloody stomach and bleeding shoulder testified of her physical injuries, her torn dress and broken off fingernails hinted of other, unseen trauma that the young woman had been forced to endure. She was lying on her side, her long black tresses flowing away from her face like inky rivers in the snow. And in front of her, was her younger brother.

Like his sister, the boy had injuries, though to Okita's eyes, his appeared to be resulting more from elemental exposure and neglect rather than physical assault. The child was tall for his age, and terribly thin, his hollow cheekbones and jutting out shoulder blades beneath a threadbare shirt indicating that he was badly malnourished, the bluish color of his exposed fingers and toes bespoke frostbite. It was however, the boy's feral growls that brought Okita up short.

Turquoise blue eyes, wide with fright and fury, bore into him with frightening intensity, his childish mouth twisted into a hateful snarl. . "You stay away from her!" Enishi hissed, baring his teeth like he was some sort of abandoned animal, brandishing a kitchen knife that he'd stolen the night he'd run away to find his sister. "If you touch her I'll kill you!"

"I don't doubt it." Okita said quietly, moving carefully towards the frightened boy. Despite his concern at getting away from Shishio's men, he continued to smile, knowing that the boy before him would bolt if he wasn't careful. "I'd do the same thing if someone tried to hurt my sister." He fished into his pocket and pulled out a stick of black jack chewing gum and held it out to the child.

Enishi stared up at the man, then down at the offered sweet, his empty stomach cramping painfully. "You have a sister?" he gasped, no longer quite as fierce as he'd been a moment before.

"Several in fact." Okita smiled gently, unwrapping the proffered stick of chewing gum and popping it into his mouth. "Being a brother is a lot of work, and a big responsibility." Carefully, he tossed the boy the rest of the pack of gum and watched sadly as Enishi ripped open the wrapper and shoved several pieces in his mouth, chewing ravenously. "It looks to me like you're a very good brother and want to help protect your sister, am I right?"

Enishi, still chewing madly, glanced back at Tomoe's still form and all the scary blood that kept coming from her body, then back at the smiling man, trying desperately to figure out if this brown haired fellow could be trusted. _(He gave me something to eat…he hasn't tried to hit me…) _From Enishi's limited perspective when it came to adult men, this fellow seemed like one of the Saints that Tomoe had tried to teach him about and therefore, was worth chancing.

"My sister, her name's Tomoe. She's been hurt awful bad," he bit down on his bottom lip as he stumbled over to the man, trying not to cry from fear and the burning pain in his legs and toes, "Some bad men, they hurt her! She's bleeding, and I can't make it stop." His eyes became teary, despite his very best efforts to be a man about the whole nightmarish mess. "Can you…will you please help her Mister?"

Okita nodded and bent down beside the little boy. "I'll do my best." He reached out to ruffle the boy's tangled hair, and then froze when Enishi winced and pulled away as though he expected to be hit. _(Why do people bring children into this world…)_ Okita smiled and repeated the gesture, needing to show the boy that he was safe and could be trusted _(…only to discard them, unloved…uncared for...in pain and afraid?) _It was something that he had seen time and time again on the force, and a tragedy that he never truly would accept or understand. "Everything is going to be all right kid, you did just fine Son."

"My name is Enishi."

Okita grinned and took of his leather gloves and put them on the boy's gum sticky hands. "Pleased to meet you Enishi, my name is Okita; I'm a police officer who's been looking for you and your sister." He took off his scarf next and wrapped it around the child's slender neck, keeping his sharp eyes and ears open for any signs of danger. "I'm going to need to take a look at your sister for a minute, is that all right?"

"You won't hurt her, right?" Enishi expression became wary again.

"Of course not," Okita said earnestly, wishing that he'd had the foresight to bring an extra pair of socks for the barefooted boy. "I just need to make sure that I can safely move her, so we can all go back to someplace safe and warm." He picked Enishi up and placed him gently on the base of the guardian angel monument. "I need to you keep a look out for the bad guys and to stay very, very quiet. Can you do this for me?"

"Sure I can!" Enishi nodded, and started peering intently at the bushes and shrubs for bad guys, his attention completely diverted for the moment away from his sister. Okita, having accomplished his fist task, moved quickly to the second. Shrugging off his wool coat, he knelt down beside the bleeding young woman. She was slender, her delicate features marred by bruises, dirt and blood. Despite all that, Okita could see that she was a very pretty girl and in very serious condition.

"Tomoe, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes sweetheart?" Gently he patted the girl's bruised cheek, trying to rouse her up out of her cold induced slumber. Carefully, he ran his hands along her frame, trying to get a handle on the extent of her numerous injuries. Her shoulder was dislocated and bleeding profusely; the bullet that had hit her was still lodged within her body. There were other injuries, far too many to count, a multitude of bruises, bumps and scratches that marred her tender skin. She'd been shot in the lower abdomen, in a place guaranteed to result in a very slow and agonizing death from internal bleeding. Either she or her brother had tried to stem the bleeding with a makeshift bandage made out of what remained of her slip.

_(She's not going to make it…)_ Okita thought sadly, tightening the homemade bandage, his gaze traveling downward, lingering on the hand shaped bruises that covered the poor girl's upper and inner thighs, his sensitive nose detecting the bitter scents of spent semen and cigar smoke in her torn and tattered clothing. _(They raped her…shot her…left her to bleed to death…)_ He bent his head over the prone girl, and offered up a prayer on her behalf, his sorrow giving way to white hot anger. _(I will make sure that they pay for what they've done to you…)_

"Is she going to be okay?" Enishi whispered, still on the look out for bad guys, his hopeful tone all the more heartbreaking to Okita's ears.

"Your sister will be resting peacefully in no time at all" Gently, Okita picked the girl up, wrapping her in his coat to give her a measure of modesty and warmth in the time that he knew she had left. He turned to pick up the boy, when he detected a faint whiff of cigar smoke, and heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being loaded. _(Oh God… have mercy on us all…) _

"Hey, Mister Okita…I think I heard something." Enishi whispered, his face going white with fear.

Okita motioned for the boy to come to him, his expression now as hard and grim as the tombs that surrounded him. "Enishi, I need you to promise me something, all right?" He glanced down at the child's little face, and offered up another prayer; one that he knew would probably be his last.

_(Oh Lord, protect this child, I pray thee.) _"No matter what happens, no matter what you see, or hear, I want you to promise me that you will run hard and fast and silently." _(…grant him a measure of mercy, extend to this little one thy protective arm…) _"You must not give up, you must not let these men find and hurt you, no matter what happens…" _(Give him the strength to endure all that he must and to survive the loss that shall surely befall him this night…) _Okita glanced down at the boy's mortally injured sister, seeing in her, the fate that would befall her brother and himself if he failed. _(…let this boy become the man that thou wouldst have him be…)_ "Enishi, do you promise me that you'll do this?" _(Amen.)_

"I promise." Enishi whispered, seeing in the kind man's face that something terrible was about to happen. "What about my sister? She's too hurt to run real fast."

"I will protect you and your sister with my life." Okita vowed. "I will die before I let these men harm you."

"I...I…don't want you to die." Enishi whimpered and instinctively gave the small, kind man an awkward pat on the arm, thanking him wordlessly for his protection and care.

"Neither do I." Okita muttered as she hefted Tomoe over his shoulder, preparing his body and mind for what lay ahead. _(At least not yet…)_

"Tell me Enishi, are you a fast runner?" He extended his free hand to the boy, hoping against hope that his lungs would hold out until he was able to either find his partner or lose the men that were following them.

Enishi gave the policeman a snarky grin and took him by the hand. "I can outrun my old man."

"Well, let's see if you can outrun me." And then he was off, running as hard and as fast as he ever had, pulling Enishi right along with him and he dodged tombstones, leapt over grave markers and dodged treacherous tree branches, heading straight for the rendezvous point that he and Saitoh had agreed on, trying to ignore the increasingly strong scent of cigar smoke and the sounds of being pursued.

Pine gum, clear and sticky dripped down, landing on the bridge of Saitoh's narrow nose. It tickled terribly and the temptation to wipe it away, or at least wiggle his nose a little was great. But Saitoh had never been the sort of man to give temptation much thought and stoically ignored his discomfort. Amber tinged eyes, as narrow and hard as the thin steel girders that were the foundation of Chicago's infrastructure, were fixed on a grey mausoleum and the macabre spectacle unfolding before him. He didn't move a muscle, forgoing to wipe the sap away, for in his current position, such a small action could betray his whereabouts and Saitoh had no intention of letting anyone know where he was, until it was in his best interests to do so.

Even in the bone biting cold, the pine sap managed to run a little, down the side of his nose, following the lean contours of his thin mouth, which was currently curled in a downright disgusted sneer. _(Morons…)_ He watched as several gangsters, marching about and around tombstones and memorial markers in loud, stupid circles, as though they were a richly dressed flock of brainless sheep.

Unlike him, they made no effort to be quiet, their boasting, coarse voices amplifying in the cold winter air as they shared swigs of cheap whiskey, mindless of the danger they brought to themselves by being so damn noisy. _(It's a wonder these idiots have managed to do so much…with so little….)_ His knife sharp focus shifted from the criminal flock of fools to their cigar smoking shepherd.

Unlike his thugs, Shishio Makoto was as silent as graves about him; the only sound that Saitoh could pick up was the occasional exhalation as he sent a grey plume of cigar smoke spiraling up into the cold, black sky. He did not move from his position against the mausoleum entrance, preferring it seemed, to simply stand and watch his merry band of brainless felons making fools of themselves in the snow.

But, like Saitoh, Makoto was anything but simple. Saitoh knew with perfect clarity, that the dapper dressed dandy was a no fool - that he was using his own men as sound cover, knowing that their noises would muffle the sound of a man being tortured while simultaneously drawing attention away from him.

Saitoh had counted three men going into the mausoleum; two thugs armed with brass knuckles and a baseball bat, and a third man, bound and bleeding, his groans and muffled screams becoming fainter with each passing second. _(Not that I care…)_ A decidedly nasty smirk replaced the sneer, as Saitoh silently shifted his weight from one foot to the other. If these snow stomping idiots killed one of their own murderous kind, thus saving him the time and effort of shooting the bastard himself, who was he to stop them? As far as he was concerned, the red headed gangster had it coming to him.

As a child, Saitoh had been taught that sinners had a place prepared for them, that the truly wicked of this world find themselves flung into a pit of endless fire, eternally tormented. As an adult, though no longer quite as religiously inclined as his parents would have preferred him to be, he had become the living embodiment of no-nonsense biblical justice, destroying the wicked, whether they be bloated officials who littered City Hall like the ancient money changers or men like these well tailored parasites living off the misery they inflicted as the burgeoning crime syndicates began spreading like fleas across the underbelly of an ill kept dog.

The problem was that the dog in question wasn't a dog …but a city…his city. He'd been born and raised in Chicago, and held an abiding place in his somber heart for the winding streets, sweltering sidewalks and litter strewn avenues. He had, in this windy city, found his calling in life; earned himself a spot on the force, met his wife at a church social, buried his parents and an older sister, and was raising three young boys.

This city, with all her faults and foibles, was his, and he was hers, first and foremost. He would not allow these fleas, these feckless morons masquerading as men of means, harm her any more than they already had. Saitoh knew that if the police weren't able to get a hold around the syndicates that were worming their way in from New York, that within the space of a decade of two, that it would be too late for the city he loved and had sworn to protect, just as it was probably too late for the children that his partner was desperately searching for.

He shifted his weight again, silently scanning the cemetery grounds, looking for and finding no trace of the missing girl or her brother, nor could he spot the very dangerous man that Makoto had sent to finish them off. The man was from the Big Apple, a cold blooded killer who was suspected in the murders of at least eight police officers and three federal agents in Chicago alone, a fedora wearing, strutting cock of the block, incredibly proud of his brutality and intelligence, and it was common knowledge that he fancied himself Makoto's equal and eventual successor.

What was not as well known was that the man was also the worst sort of sexual deviant, prone to preying on the weakest members of society and Saitoh, being a father as well as a police officer, feared that the children had suffered a fate at this bastard's hands that no child should. But a father's concerns had no place in his situation, and so he set them aside. Okita was searching for the children, and would find them; of this he had no doubts.

His task was to watch for an opening where he could take down Makoto and his gang, including the red headed young man that was being tortured within the marble mausoleum walls. Saitoh had been hunting that particular menace for nearly two years, and understood that despite his youth and injured state, if the boy drew breath after the beating, he would be a force to be reckoned with.

_(He's a damn menace, that's what he is...)_ And besides paperwork, his mother-in-law's cat and one or two of Tokio's casserole recipes, there was nothing in life that Saitoh hated more than a menace that didn't know when to quit or get killed. A tortured scream sounded from within the mausoleum walls. _(From the sound of things…he won't have to wait much longer before he's burning in hell.)_

Saitoh on the other hand, did have to wait…and so, with that thought in mind, he continued with his vigil, ignoring the agonizing screams, the sticky pine sap on his nose and the stinging coldness of his feet and patiently waited, watching the mausoleum as a wolf would a rabbit hole.

"That's enough." Shishio called into the lantern lit mausoleum. "Why don't you bring the boy out here so he and I have a little chat?" He turned his attention back to the beautiful woman at his side, enjoying her perfumed scent and come hither smile. "Are you enjoying yourself, my dear?"

"I am." Yumi cooed, blowing a thin stream of cigarette smoke into the cold night air. "Thanks for letting me tag along for the ride," she snuggled up against her most recently acquired lover, enjoying the warmth and safety of his strong embrace.

Because she was a little tipsy, and therefore more daring, and because she knew that her man enjoyed only one thing more than the sound of someone being tortured, she discretely slipped a hand beneath his fur coat and under the waistband of his trousers. "You know, after all what a kick…." She grinned as her hand moved southward, cupping her boyfriend's dangly bits for emphasis. "I get out of seeing you in action."

Shishio grinned, his handsome face illuminated by the light of a kerosene lantern. "Do you now?" He bent down and kissed her deeply, still rather amused that he'd found, in a prim and proper South Side Chicago school for stenographers of all places, a woman who really understood and accepted his unorthodox appetites. "Then you'll really enjoy what I've got planned for my errant associate."

"Here ya go, Mr. Shishio." One of his cronies said, grunting as he and a companion dragged a bloody man out of the tomb and dumped him facedown in a snow bank. "We softened him up a bit for ya, if you know what I mean."

The gangster guffawed at his own joke, as did many of the other men surrounding the mausoleum. His intoxication only adding to his mean spirited state, he hefted the baseball bat that he'd been using to beat the hapless man, and aimed it carefully, intending to split open the red head's skull like an overripe watermelon.

It was his own skull, however, that was split a millisecond later, not by a bat, but a bullet. "I said that's enough." Shishio said calmly as he put away his revolver, stepping aside so that the man he had just shot through the head could fall in a heap, without getting blood on Yumi.

"I do trust that you other men are capable of following my instructions." He eyed his cowering gang, looking for any sign of weakness or rebellion within their ranks, and then turned his attention back to the business at hand.

"Open your eyes boy." Bending down he rolled the slender body over, and surveyed the awful damage that his men had wrought. Where there once had been youth and talent, there was now only wreckage. Reaching out, he grabbed Kenshin by his badly bruised jaw, digging his fingers so deeply into the young man's skin that bruises began to bloom beneath the pads of his thumb and forefinger.

"Wake up." he ordered softly, increasing the pressure as each second passed. It was only when Kenshin's jawbone began to fracture beneath his fingertips that the sixteen year old began to stir.

"That's it, open your eyes….tell me what I need to know." Shishio whispered softly. "Tell me why you turned your back on the organization, your promising career." _(Tell me, before I kill you, why you turned your back on me!) _

He'd discovered this boy, this wonderful tool, in a dingy Blue Island brothel, saved him from having his throat slit from ear to ear and being thrown headfirst into the lake. _(The silly little shit knifed a patron in the balls with a box cutter…) _Shishio sighed fondly at the pleasant memory, remembering how he'd watched the mere slip of a boy dance and pivot around an intoxicated man nearly three times his size, before assuring with a deadly flick of his little wrist that the dockworker's brothel days were over.

There had been no fear in the child's eyes as he attacked… no hesitation or remorse for his violent actions. There had only been steel hard resolve that Shishio had recognized for what it was, and what it could be shaped into. _(And so I took him, trained him, gave him everything…)_

By the age of 12, Shinta, who adopted the name of Kenshin, was already a whispered legend in the underground world. Small and fast, the boy moved like a nightmare in the darkness, the only trace of his existence being the bodies that he left behind. _(He became my right hand man…a worthy son and successor for the empire I worked so hard to create)_

Shishio sighed sadly and released Kenshin's jaw. He'd made a fatal mistake with this one, had allowed himself to grow fond of this flame haired child. _(My weakness became his weakness…and now, he must be destroyed for both his sake and my own…) _It was a bitter lesson for the gangster, one he knew he would not repeat in the future. If and when he found another protégé, he would show them the true meaning of strength; he would withhold affection and kindness in favor of discipline and fear.

"Ah, Kenshin," Almost paternally, Shishio brushed blood soaked bangs away from the young man's forehead, "I had such high hopes for you, such high hopes."

"You could have had her you know. You could; I think, have had anyone, had you only asked me first." He traced a finger along Kenshin's broken nose, tapping the end of it to emphasize his point. "But no, you had to betray me didn't you? You had to throw everything back in my face, everything that I've taught you, all the training, all my time for the sake of a goddamn whore!"

Shishio wrapped his hand around Kenshin's neck and began to squeeze, until the injured man gasped reflexively and opened his eyes. "Was she worth it Kenshin? What she that good in bed?" He yanked Kenshin up into a sitting position and then leaned close and whispered savagely, "Because I've got to tell you, she didn't seem that good to me or my men…though…I'll be the first to admit that we may have been a tad too rough with her."

As expected, his cruel words roused the injured man. With a bitten off curse, Kenshin caught Shishio in the face with a lightning fast right hook, one that was fairly powerful considering the circumstances.

"You bastard!" Kenshin growled, spitting out blood, his yellow eyes burning with unholy rage. "How could you! She wasn't to blame!" He tried to hit Shishio again, but was tackled by several men and pinned to the icy ground.

"Ah, but she was, my friend." Shishio chuckled as he stood, paying no heed to his aching jaw. "She made you falter, caused you to waver, to move away from the truth's I'd taught you. That girl, she made you weak." He brushed off his coat and looked down with utter contempt at the man he had once proudly described as his successor. "And you should know, better than anyone else, how I deal with any form of weakness."

He motioned for his men to stand Kenshin up, and hold him tightly, then took of his coat and handed it to Yumi. "Did you really think that you could get away with it, that I would allow you to disobey my orders and not suffer the consequences?" He asked casually as he opened up his switchblade, testing its edge by running it along the side of his wrist.

"Did you honestly think that she, the root of your weakness, would also go unpunished?" Almost absent mindedly, he licked away the blood on his knife and moved closer, his dark eyes appearing red in the flickering lantern light.

"Let's see, would you like me to tell you what she tasted like when I kissed her, how she felt when I fucked her, describe way she shuddered and bled when I shot her?" he hissed as he pressed his knife against the corner of Kenshin's scarred cheek.

"Did you know that when we began having our fun, she screamed and cried and begged for you to come and save her?" Kenshin closed his eyes, the pain and horror of Shishio's words hurting him far worse than the knife that was biting into his skin. "Would it interest you to know that by the time I lost interest in her she was cursing your very name and existence?"

Shishio pressed the knife deeper, down till it scrapped against bone. "You ruined her life, broke her heart and mind and body. You did this to her, to yourself because you were weak."

"You're wrong!" Kenshin spat defiantly, knowing that his life was now measured in seconds. He looked at his former boss and shuddered, seeing in Shishio's mad, mad eyes a glimpse of who he could have become had Tomoe not shown him a better way.

"I spared her life, tried to keep her safe, to make her smile…because I loved her!" He could feel blood and tears running in warm rivulets down the side of his face, but no longer had the will to care. "Because of her, I know that there is no weakness in showing a measure of mercy, no loss of strength occurs by preserving rather than taking a life."

Kenshin's bruised throat became tight, his eyes welling up with tears as he thought about the black haired woman he loved with all his heart and had lost. "She was far stronger than you or I will ever be."

"How touching." Shishio sneered, beyond disgusted to think that once of his best men could have stooped so low to engage in sentimental rambling. "I was, out of respect for our past business relationship, going to send you out in proper fashion, you know, the whole nine yards." He slammed the knife deep into Kenshin's shoulder, and grabbed his revolver. "But I see now, that you don't deserve any more of my attention that you've already had." He took several steps step back and took careful aim.

Tomoe slowly awoke to the oddest sensation. She was moving quickly across a field of white snow that was littered with dark marble tombstones. It was strangely surreal landscape, black and white, and eerily silent, save for the sounds of crunching snow beneath running feet and the rhythmic patterns of someone breathing. Cocooned in wooly warmth, and thankfully no longer in pain, Tomoe sighed and relaxed against the back of whoever was carrying her. For an instant, hope began to spring within her, when she felt strong arms steady her, keeping her from falling in the snow. _(Perhaps Kenshin escaped….and is rescuing me…)_ She tried to turn her head, looking for fiery red hair.

"Hold still Miss." An unfamiliar voice cautioned, dashing her hopes. "Just try and relax. Just try and hang on." The man coughed then, his rapid stride faltering with each hacking exhalation. Tomoe frowned and pressed her hear against the stranger's back. She could feel a powerful heartbeat, housed in a chest that gurgled strangely, as though the lungs of the man who was holding her were filled with water.

"Tomoe you're awake!" A more familiar voice caught her attention. Tomoe turned her head to the other side, surprised to hear and now see her little brother sprinting along beside her. He was being held by the hand, practically carried along by the man who was holding her carefully as he leapt over grave markers and dodged beneath tree branches. "Just hang on Sis! We're gonna be okay, I promise!"

And because Enishi looked so hopeful, and because she had always tried to make him happy no matter the circumstances, Tomoe forced herself to smile despite the otherworldly sense of weariness that was stealing sensation from her arms and legs. "What a fast runner you are," she murmured, her soft voice barely discernable when compared with the rasping coughs that kept coming from the brown haired man.

"Not as fast as Mister Okita!" Enishi panted, running as fast and as hard as he'd promised the officer he would, though not quite as silently. "He's the fastest runner in the whole wide world!"

Okita gasped, his lungs burning painfully in his heaving chest as he leapt over a freshly dug grave, pulling Enishi right along with him. _(I wish I was boy, with all my heart I do…) _"Keep running," he panted, forcing his deadened legs and aching back and shoulders to keep moving. "We're almost….there….we've got to was in agony, his lungs and heart feeling as though they would burst. He could hear someone coming up behind them, someone taller and faster than him, someone who smelled like cigar smoke and stank of deadly intentions. Desperate, he changed directions, zigzagging through gravestones at breakneck speed, crashing under and around snowy tree limbs, trying desperately to put as much space between the man following him and children he had promised to protect.

He cringed when a shot rang out and a branch next to his left year exploded from the force of a bullet smashing into it. He veered sharply to the right, then the left, barely avoiding a second shot that ricocheted off of a tombstone, sending small rocky shards in every direction. _(I'm not going to make it…) _He glanced back, and saw to his horror that the man pursuing them was only twenty feet behind him and was preparing to fire again. _(Dammit Saitoh…where in the hell are you?) _He grit his teeth against the fiery pain in his lungs and legs and moved faster, sprinting with the last of his strength towards a large mausoleum that he prayed would give he and the children a life saving measure of shelter.

As Okita had feared, the third shot finally found its target. With a dull whine, the bullet tore into his lower back and exploded out the front of his abdomen. With a wordless cry, he fell forward, no longer able to carry the young girl or hold onto her brother, his gun flying away from him and landing in a snow bank several feet away from where he fell. Instinct and adrenaline gave him the strength and presence of mind to scramble behind the relative safety of a large tombstone and pull both the boy and his sister behind him.

"Very impressive! You managed to dodge me twice." A cocky voice slithered in between the grave markers towards the officer and children. A tall, muscular man waved mockingly as he appeared from behind a pine tree. "I'd wager that without the extra weight, you just might have had a fighting chance." He was richly dressed, wrapped up warmly in the finest fur coat that money could buy and savoring a fine Havana cigar. Advancing slowly, his wing tipped shoes sinking down in the heavy snow, the mobster crept closer and closer.

"Ya know, I might just let you bleed to death if you play nice and let me have the kiddies," he mocked as he tossed his spent revolver into the snow and pulled out his favorite toy, a seven inch curved bowie knife.

"You will never lay a hand on them!" Okita swore, his pale mouth flecked with blood. He groaned as he pressed a hand to the gaping wound, trying not to black out from shock and pain.

"Oh, but I already have, you know," Usui sneered, enjoying the officer's feeble attempts to intimidate him. "Why don't you ask the girl how much fun we had with her?" He called out; pitching his voice so that is was a low and seductive sounding rasp. "Who knows, the whore just might put out for you. God knows she did for everybody else." 

Tomoe gasped, her pale cheeks going red with anger and shame, her eyes filling with tears at the mere mention of what she'd suffered. Okita reached over and covered her shaking hand with his own. "You pay him no mind, no mind at all." Moved by a deep sense of compassion, he pulled her close beside him, wrapping his arms around the trembling young woman, cradling her gently as she wept against his chest. "It wasn't your fault."

"What does he mean "put out"?" Enishi demanded, "Why is he talking about my sister that way?"

"It doesn't matter." Okita said firmly, "None of it is true." He tried to stand and failed, falling to his hands and knees as he began to helplessly gasp for air. "You need to leave me." He ordered, trying to breathe, to think of a way for these children to survive.

"Tomoe, on the count of three, I want you…." He coughed again, wincing in agony as his life blood emptied out of his mouth and nose "I need you to take Enishi and run towards the mausoleum and promise me that you won't stop, no matter what happens. My partner…he will find you and help you." Desperately he gazed up at the black eyed girl; aware that she was in no condition to outrun anyone. "You know what will happen if they catch you…if they catch him."

"I know." Tomoe whispered, trying not to sob. "I promise that I'll keep him safe." She reached over and took her brother by the hand.

"I know you will, my brave darling girl." Okita tried to smile as he stumbled to his feet. "Enishi, you must be smart and strong and help watch over your sister. He coughed again, staining the snow and the front of his uniform with blood and bile. "You must promise me, that you won't give up, that you will keep fighting against these evil men."

"I'll never give up, honest to John." Enishi sniffled, anguished tears spilling down his cheeks. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the small paring knife that he'd stolen from the kitchen the night he'd run away to find his sister and placed it shyly in the policeman's upturned hand. "You don't give up either, okay?"

"Okay, I promise." Okita closed his eyes, giving both himself and children beside him up to a higher power.

"One."

He gripped the little paring knife and tightened the muscles in his legs and arms, willing himself to move and protect the innocent, one last time.

"Two."

With a final glance back at the children he had found, and loved and was now going to sacrifice himself for, he then moved forward with a measure of speed and grace that surprised even him.

"Three."

Saitoh was off and running the moment the second series of shots began to ring across the graveyard, his long legs propelling him quickly towards his friend and partner. _(I shouldn't have allowed him to go search for the children…he was too sick…it's too cold!)_ It was a matter of honor between the two officers that neither ever spoke of Okita's condition, that as long as the tuberculosis didn't affect his work, that there really was no reason to point it out to the precinct. Tonight had been no different. _(He said that he was fine…that he was better suited to go searching…)_ A second shot rang out. _(…that if I found the brats I'd scare the pants off of them….)_

Saitoh, being the more realistic of the two, had assumed that there would be no children alive to startle, that by sending Okita off to hunt for their remains, he could focus on what he had thought at the time was the remaining task at hand, either capturing or killing Shishio without any interruption, and that by doing so, he could spare Okita's honor and preserve the bonds of friendship between them.

A third shot rang out, this time accompanied by the sounds of a small child crying out in terror. _(I was a moron to assume anything…)_ He drew his second revolver as he ran, furious with himself for failing to consider every possibility, no matter how unlikely. _(…and now, I've not only put Okita and myself in jeopardy, but the whole damn mission!) _

And then, he heard it, the sound of two men fighting and swearing and then to his horror, a few seconds later he heard a man screaming in absolute agony. _(Okita!)_

Shishio was about to fire, when he heard a shotgun go off…and then another. "It sounds like Usui found something to shoot at," He said conversationally to Yumi. "I wonder what he found?"

"A squirrel, perhaps?" Yumi offered helpfully, wincing when a third shotgun blast echoed through the dark cemetery, sending flocks of winter birds flying in every direction. "I hate squirrels; they're disgusting, nasty things."

"No my dear, I highly doubt he's wasting ammunition on squirrels." Shishio said drolly. "Who knows, perhaps Kenshin's little lady managed to wander out of the warehouse?" He winked at the restrained man, unable to resist another taunt or two. "She was after all, quite a spirited gal."

"Tomoe is alive?" Kenshin gasped, his eyes widening.

"Well, I don't know about "alive". Shishio shook his dead, enjoying the raw grief that was etching itself into Kenshin's countenance. "No, no my dear boy, "alive" is far too positive," Shishio said as he lit up a fresh cigar. "Almost dead is more like it, if you want to know the truth." He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with rich tobacco smoke. "Though, from the sound of it, I'd bet my money that your woman has gone from almost dead to very dead."

"No!" Kenshin screamed unable to bear the torment a moment longer. "Tomoe!" He threw his head back, crushing the nose of the man standing beside him, trying desperately to break free. "Tomoe!"

"See Yumi, this is the problem with employing young people." Shishio took his lady by the arm, leading her away from any potential harm. "They're so damn emotional about everything." He watched as the slender teenager managed to either kill or main three of the seven men who were trying to keep him contained and decided that he'd better step in before things got out of hand. _(So the boy still has a little fire left in him after all…)_ "Why don't you stay by the carriage until I'm done cleaning up? That's a very nice dress that I bought you and I'd hate to see it get dirty."

"Okay." Yumi nodded, her lovely face turning pale as she watched her lover calmly roll up his arrow shirtsleeves and stroll back towards the life and death struggle as though he meant to finish a game of cards rather than finish a man off.

"C'mon Tomoe, we've got to keep going!" Enishi tugged impatiently, his teeth chattering violently from the bitter cold. "We can't stop!" Yanking and pulling and whining and pleading, he pushed his sister forward, trying to keep her safe, to keep his promise to Okita. And then he heard it as they ran and slipped and stumbled through the cemetery, the sound of a man screaming out in pain, and he knew, with a terrible sort of sinking feeling, just why the kind policeman had made them run.

Tomoe collapsed against a pine tree, her face as white as the snow about her. She was panting shallowly, her breath coming out in agonizing spurts as she tried to keep her wits and bearings about her. She began to cry when she heard the agonized sound of screaming, lamenting the loss of Okita, the loss of Enishi's innocence and most of all, she mourned the loss of her dreams and hopes and the man who had tried and failed to give her those things back, to save her not only from Shishio's men, but also from herself. _(Kenshin…) _

Grief and a deep sense of loss overwhelmed her, leaving her feeling deader than the souls who slept in the graveyard. _(I'm so tired…so…very tired…) _She wanted to lie down in the snow and never wake up, to sink back into the softness of oblivion, to give up the pain, and fear and grief that she'd carried with her for so many months, to close her weary eyes and dream of warmth, and sunshine and the welcome weight of Kenshin's arms around her.

"Tomoe!"

She jerked her head up when she heard a second voice calling out in the icy night, a voice that was heartbreakingly familiar. _(Could it be?) _Enishi looked around, trying to figure out who was hollering for his sister. "Hey, Tomoe, who's that calling for you?"

"Tomoe!"

Again, the man cried out, his voice cracking with pain, and sorrow and every single emotion that Tomoe had experienced when Shishio's men had pulled Kenshin away from her. _(He's alive…)_ Almost as if she was in a daze, Tomoe pushed away from the tree, stumbling towards the sound of her lover's voice.

"Tomoe?" Enishi stumbled behind her, trying to keep up with his sister's sudden burst of energy. "Sis? Where are ya going?"

"It's Kenshin!" Tomoe whispered as she stumbled forward towards the mausoleum. "He's alive!" She reached back and grabbed Enishi by the hand, pulling him along with her.

Enishi scowled darkly. _(I hate that man!) _In all fairness, Enishi hated any man that had shown more than a passing interest in his sister. But Kenshin was different. _(This is all his fault!)_ He'd seen Tomoe shed many a tear on account of the red headed man, and this alone would have put any man in Enishi's bad graces, but Kenshin had done the unforgivable, forcing Tomoe to run away, to abandon her brother. _(I'll never forgive him for that…)_ Enishi dug in his heels, refusing to move forward. _(Never!)_

"Nishi, what are you doing?" Tomoe gasped, "We've got to go and find him!"

"We've got to get away from this place!" Enishi argued, trying to pull his sister in the opposite direction.

"Enishi, stop it!" Tomoe snapped, pushing Enishi away from her, too tired to deal with a little brother's insecurities. "I can't leave here, not without him. Can't you understand that?"

"No!" Enishi stomped his foot in the snow. "We need to go now! I hate Kenshin! He's a bad, mean man! He made you cry! He took you away from me! I hate him!"

"And I love him!" Tomoe said quietly, her pale mouth settling into a thin, disapproving frown. "I will not leave him behind, Enishi. Not if I can help it."

Enishi recoiled as though he'd been slapped. "You're supposed to love me!" He whimpered angrily, torn between being utterly devastated and completely pissed. "You're supposed love me, take care of me! Not him! Not him!" He stomped his foot again, clenching his hands into angry fists. _(If this doesn't work, nothing will!) _"If you don't come with me right now…I'll…I'll hate you forever!"

"Then you will have to hate me, Enishi," Tomoe murmured sadly as she pushed forward through the grove of evergreens, unwilling to give into his manipulations.

Enishi then did something that he regretted for the rest of his life. He lost his temper with his sister. "I will hate you!" He shrieked, betraying his feelings of fear and abandonment in an ill timed temper tantrum. "I do hate you!"

"You don't mean that, Enishi." Tomoe sighed wearily, her strength and voice ebbing with each passing moment.

"Yes, I do!" Enishi was so angry he actually picked up a fistful of snow and chucked it at Tomoe's back as she finally broke through the snow covered pine branches, and stumbled out into the clearing that surrounded the mausoleum. "You're a terrible sister!"

Tomoe froze as she peered out onto the courtyard of the mausoleum, seeing what Enishi could not. _(Oh God no!)_ She watched, her eyes going wide with horror, as Kenshin fought for his life, his blood stained face and body locked in ferocious combat with a much taller man. What caused her blood to freeze though was the man standing behind the fighting pair, aiming a rifle at the back of Kenshin's head. _(He's going to shoot him!) _

Tomoe tried to scream, to warn Kenshin of the danger, to do anything but watch another good man murdered, unwilling to endure the heart wrenching agony of seeing her second love die before her eyes. But her voice was no more than a wintry whisper, and she knew, that no matter how hard she tried to scream, that it would be to no avail. _(Which leaves me only one other option…)_

A strange, almost euphoric peace settled on her, and as she gauged the distance between herself and the tall man wielding a rifle, and she felt, for the first time, in a very, very long time, like the short time she had left on this earth, was suddenly worth living. Her only regret was that there would be one child who she could not help but leave behind. _(I hope that someone will look out for him, that one day he will understand…)_

"I love you Enishi." Tomoe whispered. Please be strong…please be a good boy."_ (Please…try and forgive me for what I'm about to do...)_


End file.
